Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Good bridge players are ever mindful of "right-siding" the notrump. It is important to make sure that the proper hand plays the notrump contract.

Here is an example from a recent team game. I held this hand and heard my LHO open 1D, my partner overcall 2C and my RHO bid 2S:

xxxKQJxKxxJxx

What do I bid? I could cue bid spades asking pard to bid notrump with a spade stopper. I could raise clubs, or I could bid 2 or 3 notrump.

The key is my diamond stopper (Kxx). I have to be the declarer so that my diamond king is protected. If I bid 3S and partner bids 3NT, my diamond king will probably be picked off on the opening lead with unfortunate consequences.

I like my help in clubs and partner's values all rate to be working as they are situated behind the opening bidder. I finally decided to go ahead and bid 3NT and hope that pard had a spade stopper.

A diamond was tabled and the dummy was satisfactory:

AKxxxxxAQ10xxx

xxxKQJxKxxJxx

With the club king onside I had an easy 9 tricks for a 10 imp pickup against 130. Had the contract been played from the other side it would no doubt have failed.

***********I picked up this hand a few days ago in a team game:

AQxxxKxKxAQxx

I opened 1S, intending to bid 2NT at my next opportunity. Instead partner responded 1NT. I was immediately disappointed because it was likely that the notrump was wrong-sided. All my honors were vulnerable to the opening lead. We ended in 3NT and pard was lucky to make it because the diamond ace was situated well. Our 2NT openers are 19-20 and we discussed the merits of opening this 18 count 2NT to protect the red kings. That's getting a little light, but it may be worth it if you right-side the notrump!

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Partner deals and opens 1 Heart. You are playing 2/1 Game Force. RHO passes, and you bid 2 Diamonds. Partner now surprises you and bids 3 Clubs. How do you go from there? You immediately think of a possible grand slam. If partner has AKxxx of clubs and the heart ace, it is easy to envision 13 tricks. However, partner could have as little as Jxxx in clubs, say KQx/AKxxx/x/Jxxx, so you can't commit to clubs since diamonds may be a better trump suit. So you go decide to go slowly and rebid 3 Diamonds. Partner rebids 3 No-Trump. You now decide to bid 4 Clubs to complete your description. Partner answers with a discouraging 5 Clubs. Should you bid the slam? It's not a clear decision, but you decide to take the plunge and bid 6 Clubs.

Now move into partner's chair. You get the ace of Spades lead, and you are looking at:

voidQxAKQxxxxQTxx

QJxAxxxxvoidAJ9xx

How do you play it? The most straightforward plan is to set up and use dummy's diamonds. The problem is to both set up the suit and be able to get back to dummy to run it. You have to ruff the spade. What distributions do you need to make this, and how do you take advantage if they occur? Decide before reading on.

I thought that the best chance was for clubs 2-2 and diamonds no worse than 4-2. So I ruffed a diamond and played the club jack. If either hand has Kx, they couldn't hurt me with another high spade, since I could ruff, cash the queen to draw the remaining trumps and run the diamonds. No such luck. RHO won the club king and played another spade, forcing dummy to ruff. Now when I played the club queen, LHO showed out. But all was not lost! There was still another remote chance. I started running diamonds, and RHO had to follow to 3 rounds. So I was able to pitch three heart losers. On the fifth round of diamonds, RHO ruffed and I overruffed. Now I played the heart ace, and, miraculously, RHO dropped the king! So the slam came home after all. His hand was:

xxxxxKJTxxKxx.

Note that if you do not ruff a diamond at trick 2, you cannot use the diamonds even if clubs are 2-2. If clubs are 3-1, you cannot use dummy's diamonds no matter how you play it. You will not be able to finish drawing trumps in dummy with an established diamond suit even if the king is onside and diamonds split 3-3.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

It had been a hard day at the local sectional. We got blitzed in the first round when our friend Kate led a club from 9xxx to defeat our notrump slam. We didn't make it to average until round three, the halfway point. After strong wins in the next two matches we were a distant third going into the final match. We lobbied to play the second place team, but the oddities of the bracketing forced us to play another team, forfeiting our ability to directly control our own fate. Not only did we need a big win, we needed the two teams in front of us to seriously falter.

After going down a couple on an unmakeable game, partner dealt and passed at favorable vulnerability on the next board. RHO bid 1C, LHO bid 1H and pard now came in with 1 notrump, showing the other two suits. RHO jumped to 4H and I considered my hand:

QxxQxKJ1098762

What the heck--4 spades, a bid I thought I could get away with. Pass, pass, 5H on my right. All passed and pard led a spade.

Dummy had:Ax109xxAQAKQJx

Declarer won the spade ace and ran the H10 to pard's king who returned his lowest spade. I won the queen and decided pard was void in clubs. I returned a club for him to ruff and he returned a diamond, my king winning the finesse. I gave him another ruff. When the smoke cleared we were plus 300. We could have doubled but this felt like a good score as 4H would probably make.

A few boards later I picked this collection, vulnerable:

Q9xxAKQ8xxKJx

I opened 1H and pard bid 2H, constructive. I jumped to game and a club was led.

8xxJ109QxxxAKx

Q97xAKQ876KJx

I won the ace (I hate to go down at trick one!) and paid attention to the discouraging signal played by RHO. After pondering my options I played a heart and then led a diamond to my king. It held! Now I could lose 3 spades and still make my contract. There are various ways to accomplish this, but I made it unnecessarily difficult for myself by having to rely on an endplay at trick 12. As it turns out RHO had A10 of spades and 3 trumps. LHO had KJxx of spades and 1 trump. A straightforward line, which would probably have worked, would be to play on spades immediately, leaving a high trump in dummy to ruff the 4th one if necessary.

Instead I drew trump and threw in LHO with a spade, who then led a club which I ducked to my jack and good 9 of spades. Oh well--620 was the goal.

While we were waiting for our teammates to finish, we learned that the second place team had suffered a big loss. When we compared scores we won 14 imps as our teammates made 4H while we set 5H three tricks. We also won 12 imps as they beat 4H while I made it. We wound up with 18 victory points and hovered at the leader board waiting to see how the first place team fared.

Surprise--they were blitzed! We won the event by 3 victory points. Bob, Gary, John and I were pleased--especially considering our dismal beginning.

(*Note the advantage of opening 2NT on the first hand. The opponents don't get into your auction and the big hand is hidden. Our teammate got a club lead which was ruffed. He rose with the ace when a diamond was returned and played ace and another heart which drew the trumps. He gave up a diamond and the losing spades went away on the good clubs.)

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